U.S. households' access to and use of electronic banking. 1989-2007

Nationwide surveys show that consumers are increasingly embracing technology to make payments and manage their personal finances. However, only about one in two consumers could be considered a heavy user of electronic banking. This article examines changes over time in consumers’ access to, adoption of, and attitudes toward various e-banking products and services and looks at several emerging technologies.Consumers' preferences ; Electronic funds transfers

An Approach for Agile SOA Development using Agile Principals

In dynamic and turbulent business environment, the need for success and survival of any organization is the ability of adapting to changes efficiently and cost-effectively. So, for developing software applications, one of the methods is Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) methodology and other is Agile Methodology. Since embracing changes is the indispensable concept of SOA development as well as Agile Development, using an appropriate SOA methodology able to adapt changes even during system development with the preservation of software quality is necessary. In this paper, a new approach consisted of five steps is presented to add agility to SOA methodologies. This approach, before any SOA-based development, helps architect(s) to determine Core Business Processes (CBPs) by using agile principals for establishing Core Architecture. The most important advantage of this approach according to the results of case study is possibility of embracing changes with the preservation of software quality in SOA developments.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, 1 table; http://airccse.org/journal/ijcsit2012_curr.htm

Cycles and Stability in Linguistic Signaling

This dissertation advances our understanding of the roles played by pragmatic and grammatical competence in theories of language change by using mathematical and statistical methods to analyze the cross-linguistic change in the expression of negation known as Jespersen\u27s cycle. In the history of Middle English this change is characterized by two transitions: from pre-verbal ne to an initially emphatic embracing ne...not; from embracing ne...not to post-verbal not. This description conflates two often related process: the formal cycle describes changes in the forms of negation available and consists of the transitions from pre-verbal to embracing to post-verbal negation; the functional cycle describes changes in how forms are used to signal meaning and consists of the transition from pre-verbal to embracing negation. Using tools from evolutionary game theory, we show that the functional cycle can be explained by limits on our pragmatic competence. The incoming embracing form is initially restricted to negating propositions that are common information between interlocutors. But, experimental evidence shows that speakers have difficulty in distinguishing common and privileged information. Speakers use the initially restricted form in more and more contexts that are less and less closely tied to the discourse, and it undergoes a kind of informational bleaching. Applying statistical methods developed in population genetics, we show that grammatical competence, and the process of acquisition through which it is formed, predict stability rather than change in both transitions of the formal cycle unless the observed transitions are the result of the accumulation of small random changes akin to genetic drift in finite populations. We show that we can reject this possibility in the first transition of the formal cycle, but not in the second. The possibility of random change in the second transition of the formal cycle offers some insight into the varying amount of time it takes across languages. The main contribution of this dissertation is demonstrating the need for articulated models of both pragmatic and grammatical competence in explanatory theories of language change, while also offering a set of tools and methods for analyzing different factors in historical corpora

An Analysis of Current Healthcare Proposals: Obama and McCain

The healthcare system of the U.S. is broken. The next opportunity for overwhelming healthcare system reform will be when the next president takes office. This paper analyzes the 2008 presidential election candidates McCain and Obama healthcare proposals through a look at key players in the current healthcare system (government, pharmaceuticals, doctors, hospitals, and health insurance companies) and the affects of implementing such a plan. The presidential plans are presented side by side. Projected outcomes of the changes offered by Obama will be an increased role of the government and decreased power of the health insurance companies while increasing coverage. The McCain plan would have more choice for individuals with a transparent system, and less governmental bureaucracy while embracing the free market competition of the health insurance industry. There will be obstacles and/or resistance to any reform passed by the presidential elect, no matter which man had won

The Impact of Rankings and Rules on Legal Education Reform

Legal education is experiencing intense pressures and is undergoing profound changes. Two important forces that help shape and limit the nature and scope of legal education reform are the U.S. News & World Report rankings and the American Bar Association\u27s accreditation standards. The push and pull of these forces helps explain why law schools are embracing some changes and resisting others

The UK Benchmark Network - Designation, Evolution and Application

The UK has one of the densest gauging station networks in the world – a necessary response to its diversity in terms of climate, geology, land use and patterns of water utilisation. This diversity and, particularly, the compelling impact of artificial influences on natural flow regimes across most of the country, implies a considerable challenge in identifying, interpreting and indexing changes in river flow regimes. Quantifying and interpreting trends in river flows – in particular separating climate-driven changes from those resulting from other driving mechanisms – is a necessary pre-requisite to the development of improved river and water management strategies. It is also a primary strategic objective of many national and international river flow monitoring programmes. This paper charts the development of the UK Benchmark Network through its initial promotion phase – involving key institutional partners in both the hydrometric data acquisition and user communities – through to its exploitation across a wide a range of policy, scientific and engineering design applications. Particular consideration is given to the criteria used to appraise and select candidate catchments and gauging stations. Spatial characterisations (particularly physiographic, geological and land use) are used to determine the representativeness of individual candidate catchments and hydrometric performance (in the extreme flow ranges especially), together with record length, is of primary importance in relation to gauging station selection. Indexing the degree to which artificial influences disturb the natural flow regime is also a necessary pre-requisite for selection across much of the UK. Descriptions are given of a number of network and data review mechanisms developed to maximize the utility of the Benchmark Network and the burgeoning range of applications which have capitalized on it – embracing both national and international monitoring programmes. The review finishes with an overview of the strategic benefits deriving from the operation of the Benchmark Network and examines some of the enduring issues which require further work – including the continuing focus on operationally driven gauging activities; meeting the more stringent data demands of the Benchmark Network, and the need for further integration of catchment monitoring activities – embracing a wider range of hydrometeorogical variables

Three ways to minimise professionals’ resistance to governmental change using the policy alienation model

Why do public service professionals resist some changes, while embracing others? Lars Tummers is an expert on the analysis of ‘policy alienation’. He has studied problems that professionals working in a range of sectors – including healthcare, social security and education – face in implementing new government policies. The conclusions he draws challenge the common assertions as to why professionals show resistance to adopting change

Like, Link, Share: How Cultural Institutions Are Embracing Digital Technology

This report shows how forty cultural innovators are investing in technology and media capacity to connect with new audiences in new ways, create new programs, and strengthen their operations. Established cultural insitutions face challenges as they grapple with rapidly changing technology. Taking full advantage of digital opportunities requires organizations to change their internal systems, work processes, and staff structures, and to tailor the development of digital capabilities to their individual programming, operational, and revenue strategies. However disrutive this process may be, digital strategy is no longer optional but essential. The public expects to engage with culture digitally, to sample and share, to connect and participate

Aesthetics into the Twenty-first Century

The new concerns facing aestheticians in the twenty-first century require serious attention if the discipline is to maintain continued viability as an intellectual discipline. Just as art changes as cultures develop, so must aesthetics. In support of this view is a personal account of evolving engagement with aesthetics and the factors that led to embracing change and a plurality of practices as essential to the health of aesthetic today. A brief examination of the state of aesthetics as it has evolved in the American Society for Aesthetics since its inception in the 1940s will follow. These two lines of development, one idiosyncratic and personal, and the other focusing on the aims and outcomes of one prominent national society, will perhaps offer some useful background for understanding the current state of aesthetics and the problems confronting the discipline today. Following these considerations will be a look at some of the main concerns reflected in the social and political aesthetics and the expansion of aesthetics to include the popular arts which again challenges aesthetics to move beyond its historic boundaries